Prepare for the Best and Forget the Rest

In the week or so before the event, we recommend you develop an Event Production Plan, a schedule with all the nitty gritty details that need to happen on the day of the event. This is how you can make sure everyone on your team knows what they need to do, where they need to be, when they need to be there, and what to do if an issue comes up.

In order to finalize the details in you Event Production Plan, you will also want to confirm the following things leading up to your event:

Venue: Confirm your venue is booked and accessible several hours before and after your event. If the space is typically locked, get the name/contact info of the person who will be there to open it. Make sure you know where to find a working power source.

Equipment: Confirm the delivery and setup plan for all of your event equipment. Who is going to set things up? Take things down? Confirm timing and get names/contact info.

Signage: Confirm your signage will arrive on time whether it is being shipped from a professional printer or getting made by hand by members of your team. Assign someone to bring them to the venue and set them up.

Handouts: Confirm that your handouts have no typos/errors. Assign someone to print, bring, and set them up at the venue. They can easily fly away in the wind, so bring little things with a bit of weight to prevent that.

Giveaways: Confirm your giveaways will arrive on time whether they are being shipped from a professional printer or getting made by hand by members of your team. Assign someone to bring them to the venue and set them up.

Speakers/Performers: Confirm logistics with any speakers/performers. Ensure they know when and where to show up. Assign a member of your team to meet speakers/performers and give that team member’s contact info to them.

Decorations: Confirm any decorations will arrive on time and assign someone to bring them to the venue and set them up.

Social Media Installation: Confirm you have the materials for your Social Media Installation and assign someone to set it up. Ensure that a member of your team will be present throughout the event to encourage name-readers and passersby to visit the installation and post to social media.

Food/Drinks: Confirm any food/drinks will arrive on time and assign someone to bring them to the venue and set them up.

Press Release: Confirm that your press release has been sent to local media organizations.

Name-Reading Sign-Up Sheet: Confirm that the name-reading sign-up sheet is completely filled by community members. Reach out to friends to help fill gaps. Direct messages/conversations with friends work better than group emails. Any gaps on the day of the event will need to be filled by your team.

Email Reminder for Name-Readers: Send a reminder email with instructions to everyone who signed up to read names the day before the event. This is really helpful to reduce the risk of no-shows!

Final Team Meeting: Host a final meeting with your team to do three key things:

Review your Event Production Plan and ensure everyone understands their responsibilities. Ensure that at least one, but preferably two team members will be present to operate the event venue at all times - one to manage the name-reading and a second to manage the webcam and social media installation.

Set up a way to communicate across your team for the day of the event (e.g. group text message/GroupMe) and ensure everyone knows who to call if there is an urgent issue.

Ensure everyone on your team is trained well enough to answer basic questions about the who-what-why of Together We Remember. Passersby are likely to ask!

Rest Up & Rock Out!

After all of your hard work, everything and everyone is prepared to bring the magic of TWR to your community. Now all that is left to do is get some rest for the big day. We’ll be right there with you on social media. We can’t wait!